I’ve just read Steven Pinker’s article “Why Academics Stink at Writing”, and am feeling even more frustrated as an academic editor. Why? I’d like to adopt many of his suggestions about reforming academic writing to a “classic style,” which he defines as follows:
The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see something that the reader has not yet noticed, and he orients the reader so she can see for herself. . . . The writer knows the truth before putting it into words; he is not using the occasion of writing to sort out what he thinks. The writer and the reader are equals: The reader can recognize the truth when she sees it, as long as she is given an unobstructed view. And the process of directing the reader’s gaze takes the form of a conversation. (Pinker, 2014)
As a copyeditor, I relish the thought of receiving manuscripts (MSS) written in classic style, rather than writing filled with jargon, ‘acadamese,’ awkward noun phrases, lots of passive voice and over-description, and mind-numbing repetition. Editing well-written texts would certainly be more pleasurable. I would essentially become a proofreader looking for the odd typo, missing comma, or incorrectly formatted heading. However, that is far from the reality. In most MSS I receive I encounter every problem with academic writing Pinker identifies. He pinpoints many of the reasons academics succumb to these bad habits. I certainly did when I wrote research papers, essays, and dissertations.
However, I think Pinker’s argument fails to address a major issue. He writes: “The writer knows the truth before putting it into words; he is not using the occasion of writing to sort out what he thinks.” Most beginning academic writers do not and cannot understand the essence of their research project before writing it down. They do use writing to figure it all out. It is a process. Then in revising, instead of clarifying the arguments, all their insecurities and self-conscious tendencies as ‘junior’ academics take over, especially for master’s and doctoral students seeking approval from esteemed professors in their field. These insecurities are a constant in most academic’s lives, whether tenured or not. But we’re not here today to solve psychological problems.
There’s no doubt that readers prefer classic style writing to academese. If you haven’t read Pinker’s article or his book—Sense of Style—with the same basic message — please do. Pinker argues that writing in the classic style would expand the academy’s audience and add credibility to its purposes. So revising an MS so that the writing is not as much academese as classic style should then become the writer’s (and editor’s) goal. Agreed. Easy to say, quite difficult to do. So let’s begin with some ideas and strategies for academic writers to start undoing these bad habits. These will be presented in a series of blog entries in the coming months and years centered around the broad topic “Unstinking bad writing with effective revision strategies.”
Notice I didn’t say ‘with effective writing strategies.’ As a writing teacher with lots of experience with naïve academic writers, I understand well the distinction. Not only is writing not effectively taught in high school or college, revision is generally thought to be secondary, almost a proofreading operation—turn on spellcheck, ensure consistent spacing, and done. So this main idea is captured in a slogan—Writing really begins with revision. And this is a useful reminder to all writers no matter their experience. Do you think great writers are ever satisfied with their first drafts?
The Writing Process
So what would an ideal writing process look like? Before a word is written comes lots of thinking about a topic, then weeks and months of reading and research about it, and then comes the development of methods, ideas, questions, and arguments about some aspect(s) of the prior research that is not only interesting, but (hopefully) new and controversial. (More of this in a later post.) So after the thinking, reading, and brainstorming comes some tentative outlining to get you started on putting words on screen. Then finally comes the first sentence. At this point, different writers will proceed differently. Some will ponder each sentence, or a few sentences, rewrite and revise, then write another sentence or two and repeat the process over and over.
I would suggest a different tack. Use this first draft of a section or chapter as thoughtful, organized brainstorming. Stream the ideas. Try to find the ‘groove’ or the ‘zone’. Don’t stop yourself after each sentence. While keeping your main ideas front and center and your outline close beside, write fast and write some more. View this stage as a sketch or drawing before the paint is applied. This first draft will produce some excellent formulations and capture many of your best ideas. But it is still only a sketch. Like a painter, you can begin to reconsider the structure, composition, and placement of elements in the overall design and make some adjustments.
Writing in this way will produce language you would use to describe your thoughts orally with a colleague—IT WILL NOT BE ACADEMESE! People don’t talk in academese, even those academics buried in the academy for years. So writing at a faster pace should eliminate the convoluted, torturous, wordy formulations of academese.
The Revision Stage
Now to the most important stage—revision—where the (good) writing really begins. And, contrary to what Pinker suggests, for most writers it is also where the best thinking takes place. Now each paragraph, each sentence, each phrase develops and fine tunes your argument. Your arguments are still largely in the developmental stage, not predetermined. Now you may be reconsidering and revising the main topics of your outline as well as the structure of your first draft. You could be cutting out whole paragraphs and thinking of better replacements to fill the gaps. Research you reviewed but didn’t expect to use may now need to enter your argument.
This may be different from the work flow of most experienced academic writers. Professors and researchers with many years of experience will generally have completed their thinking about the main arguments, research questions, and methods. But this is probably not true for many grad students writing a first journal article or their dissertation.
Processes of Revision
I think it’s helpful to view revision as several stages or processes rather than a pass or two through your MS rewriting sentences, adding transitions, improving flow, correcting typos. Not only will you be reconsidering the logic and the major and minor elements of your argument, you will also have to rework paragraphs and sentences accordingly. This is in recognition of your changing thinking about your arguments. You’re fine-tuning them. This writing/revision process is really hard for many writers, including me. When writing my dissertation, I rewrote and revised each sentence and paragraph over and over for weeks and months in a piecemeal stop and start manner. After revising a paragraph or two I’d find it didn’t fit in with the revised narrative arc I was embarking on as my thinking changed, so instead of writing up that new thread of argument, I’d stop the flow and rework the paragraphs I had already revised a couple times. Then I’d try to get back to the flow of the revised argument, but often with difficulty. So please consider my advice. The first stage of revision is mostly concerned with improving and sharpening your thinking about the research questions and main arguments and methods that flow from them. You are less concerned about the writing quality, and more focused on structure and flow of your argument and narrative.
(Continued on the May 2019 newsletter)